Top 10 1970s Arcade Games

The 1970s was the golden age of the arcade industry and included such classics like Pong, Galaxian, Breakout and many more. Why not tell me your favourite arcade games of the 1970s in the comments section below and please like and subscribe as there will be plenty more Top 10 gaming countdowns on the way.

[@bigcoolviking]

I had a Galaxan 'ex rental' tabletop pub game as my kitchen table, in 1981-82 got it for £60, my Dad loved it too.

[@easygame7955]

"It was long ago and it was far away, and it was so much better than it is today" I'm so happy I lived it. :)

[@kramalerav]

Our minds are wired to remember good memories as being better than they actually.

[@matthewallenblack]

Still would've been ridiculously cool to be a kid when these games were coming out.

[@noelht1]

@@matthewallenblackIt was mate. There was nothing like the thrill of the arcade. And then when they brought that into the home with the Atari 2600. The world all came together for our generation

[@spaztekwarrior]

Was always impressed with Lunar Lander and the way the landscape zoomed in or panned out … made it feel larger and more epic than it was. Lots of fond 70s memories with many of these games.

[@eternalnut]

Galaxian is by far my favorite. Not only is it so fun, but I just think the sounds and the way the aliens swoop down is so awesome. Also I strangely love Death Race.

[@horusplaysgames6384]

I was a big fan of asteroids, breakout and Space Invaders, but when I met Galaxian... That was it. Galaga was fun too, but I still miss Galaxian.

[@LewisRowe-id6kr]

I remember Defender being massively popular too. Mind you, I think that was 1981. The sounds and the visual effects were spectacular, and they often had the volume pumped up nice and loud in the arcades. The gameplay was fast and furious. ...and of course notoriously hard.

[@nahzewilliams5912]

always loved that Galaxian sound....many good memories

[@oddities-whatnot]

Wow Galaxians, not seen that for years. That was a childhood favourite of mine on days out to the seaside. Thanks for upload.

[@thedutchfisherman7078]

I have it on my Steam Deck on emulation. As well as a lot of others retro games. Loved em back then as a kid. 😎

[@davidwhaite3330]

Great Top 3 spot on, True classics ,

[@Thomas-s9s]

I played Galaxian and Space Invaders a lot when i was around 10-12 years old. When i hear the sounds of these two arcade games, i remember them as clear as if it was yesterday i played them. Galaxian though was always my favorite.

[@musclesmouse]

I remember playing lunar lander at science museum in San Francisco. Loved the sub game at locals Fiesta mart. Also had many versions of the home pong and breakout/super breakout. Now I have Moon Alien cocktail. Love playing it.

[@huskyhooligans999]

Defender, missile command and Galaxian is where my dinner money went 🙄

[@hopebgood]

I was really very, VERY good with Defender. Galaxian not so good and tbh I was rubbish with Missile Command.

[@LITTLE1994]

3:09 Before Mortal Kombat, there was THIS. Death Race was a hated arcade back in 1976. They're very hard to find these days.

[@bishopman2308]

Breakout was so addicting.

[@colinthomson7518]

brings back lots of memories

[@gouvyrock]

my all time favorite on arcade and atari 2600 is galaxian - masterpiece

[@harrycallahan3391]

Great vid pal and some nice nostalgia. Obviously Space Invaders set the benchmark for all arcade games to come, but still my favourite even to this day is Galaxian.. 😁

[@presidentsnow7315]

I'm glad that someone finally gave Radar Scope some love. I loved that game.

[@finisher3x]

I had never seen that Radar Scope game before. I would've played the hell out of that game as a young kid.

[@Captain-Cosmo]

Pong defined the 70s, and Breakout (and its variations) were merely variations of it. Asteroids was built on the Lunar Lander platform and totally overshadowed Space Invaders. Galaxian was popular, but was considered more difficult. We all preferred Galaga when it came out. Tempest is not mentioned in this or the 80s video, but it was an important game that doesn't get enough mention.

[@toptenguy1]

#5 : "It attracted a great deal of controversy". Me : Sees it for the first time... " *YA THINK?!???!?* " LOL

[@nobodyuknow6337]

Kids these days "I'm not gonna play those dumb boring outdated games" Parents "Fine, you can do the dishes" Kid "Like I said, there's nothing like the classics...................how do I turn this thing on?"

[@TheOneTrueSpLiT]

The true classics here, all "easy to play, but hard to master".

[@cyclenut]

I lived in a rural area and arcade games did not get there till around 79 or 80. It was the Table Tennis game. But the early 80s the bowling alley got Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.

[@jonskitch8082]

Galaxian!

[@speedbird737]

Have most of these (including Lunar Lander and Sea Wolf!) on my AtLegends Arcade Ultimate machine! Lunar Lander had a cool thrust level on the original arcade machine. Oh with asteroids you're meant to leave a couple of asteroids flying around but not clear them - just keep shooting the spaceships/UFOs and get lots of points.

[@HappilyNorth]

Galaxian was the bollocks. Those sounds bring back memories of being taken to the pub, given a bottle of coke with a straw and a packet of salt n' vinegar and being left to play it on one of those sit down machines. I'd always remembered it as Galaga but it wasn't it was Glaxian.

[@sluggotg]

When the Magnavox Odyssey came out, non of us kids could believe it. Pong came out shortly. Then Tank/Tanks, Gun Fight, Boot Hill, Biplanes, etc. Space invaders and Asteroids Blew up and it was Established in Stone. The Adults proclaimed in the late 70's/early 80's that The Video Game Fad had died....(they would proclaim this over and over till the mid/late 80's). I Was blessed with being Video Gamer 1.0.. Everyone involve from Creator to Consumer, Thanks what the hell!! I Love Video Games!!! (I define that as Coin Op, Console, and of course Computer! (C64/Amiga Guy!).

[@jgent70]

No Tailgunner? 1979. LOVED THAT GAME.

[@danielwilliamson6180]

If I owned a video arcade I'd call it "Arcadia's Gladiators".

[@peterquinn8419]

The first game I played was pong when my parents would go to the pub they would give my Brother and I a pocket full of 20c pieces and we would sit at one of those coffee table machines and play pong sipping on cokes all day while my oldies got pissed.. I would have been perhaps 5 or 6 years old at the time. We then grew up with space invaders and asteroids and mastered them until the Atari came out which was just the ants pants in gaming at the time. Im 52 now and still play console with my sons. Never too old.

[@peterquinn8419]

@retrospectivej5718 There are 2 games Im right into at the moment. One is a game called Generation Zero. Its a lesser known game but I think hugely missed. Sort of game you can sit there grinding on for hours. The other one is Conan Age of War. Its more a survival type game. I know there is still a place for the old retro games I grew up on but games of today I do think are so much better than in my day. I still get a mind blow when I think that I am actually playing a game in real time with other people who are on the other side of the planet while also being able to talk to them at the same time. The world has got so much more advanced and games certainly have kept up with the ride. I also play or have played things like GTA, 7 days to die, Need for speed and used to love all the Zombie games from the Black Ops set. I even loved the one that had the zombie one called I think Colosseum. What about yourself? What games do you like and play?

[@johnnyzippo7109]

Wow , yeah , I remember all but 2 of these cabinets in smoky pizza joints and gas stations , incredible , less was just more back then .

[@AnotherBuddha]

You know that your getting old, when you regularly played these when they first came out! 🤔☹️😋

[@ashtonogwigglesfan]

I like the classic video games from the 70's and the 80's.

[@IsaacKuo]

The crazy thing about Space Invaders is how it is a deeper superior game than all the games it inspired. Galaga would set a new paradigm which emphasized memorization of enemy attack patterns. But the original Space Invaders had something the successors lacked - an excitement level that ramped up do to speeding up as the level progressed. You had to strategically plan how you were going to deal with that. The way the game made you think about the interaction of speedup and the width of the attacking formation ... you just didn't get any of that from Galaxian onward.

[@donovanweber6059]

That was/is a good observation and an intelligent assessment of the facts. Speaking of facts, the fact that we happen to be talking video games changes nothing!

[@sovietonion72]

Number 3 should be Number 1

[@barryguff6893]

I totally disagree. As an 8-year-old (born in 1970) I found Space Invaders to be totally slow, boring and repetitive. Galaxian, on the other hand, was far superior with its faster speed, random dive bombs, colors, and sounds. My friends and I always used to say how Galaxian was what Space Invaders wished it was. :) Like Space Invaders 2.0, if you will.

[@nossapieterse3687]

I remember that space invaders was a black&white screen, with colored transparent tape on the screen. So it looked like a color sereen

[@tony--james]

another game I saw often enough was Sprint 2 -1976 with the 2 steering wheels etc , it stood out

[@deltabilly1]

Takes me back

[@canalgamegenie]

I really liked the video. I played a lot of space invaders. Congratulations.

[@wizzgamer]

Game Genie Thanks :)

[@highgreen6452]

I've just bought a bar top arcade machine I can't keep off galaxian 800 points for 2 reds and a yellow whoosh

[@dataripz]

Love Sea wolf back in the 70s. I was a natural then, now I can easilyget to the second block from the top on Stacker sometimes the top but there is something fishy about the last block.

[@anonymousidea9119]

Asteroids is #1! Space Invaders, Pong, and Breakout are classics

[@mrp5169]

Lunar Rescue, Defender and Phoenix my favs💥💥

[@afallin]

Searching for the name of a shooter game i used to, and loved, playing in the late 80s/90s. It was a galaxy shooter, but the background had constellations and we used to play the second version, so something II. Anyone?

[@leslauner5062]

I played all of these, except the Lunar Lander one, which I never saw....

[@Jmacx9]

2020 now,these bring back a flood of memories of a great time in American history.Very good post

[@jeffwolcott7815]

Dang Space Invaders, never could get that last one. 😠

[@chill9371]

cool 👍

[@pez334]

I liked all those games but I would have to have a top 15 to include starship1, Boot Hill ,star fire ,space wars and star hawk, and I was surprised that none of the driving games where there like lemans or fire truck or night driver just to name a few

[@SmashCatRandom]

3:37 It was actually written by Steve Wozniac - Jobs' co-founder of Apple. Jobs actually conned Woz by telling him he was only getting paid a small amount for the game, and paid him half that amount, when Woz actually designed all of the hardware and wrote the entire game himself. Jobs did literally nothing. Woz found out that Jobs had stiffed him years later.

[@kieranstark7213]

The only problem with these games isn’t because if how dated they are (if anything, they’re actually TIMELESS), but because half of these games (except for Galaxian (which might as well be the predecessor of Galaga and like Pac-Man and Klonoa, Galaga is a gaming series that makes Namco a really underrated gaming company compared to the likes of Nintendo and Sega), Pong, Breakout and Space Invaders, which are also timeless!) are too underrated for their own good.

[@ClassicDOOM]

Good video, and nice selection of games. I think Sea Wolf may have been the first coin-op I ever played. I'd also suggest Space Wars (1977, Cinematronics), an improved Computer Space type game. It was 2-player only, unfortunately; but a lot of fun.

[@wizzgamer]

Classic Doom Thanks :)

[@timothysmith5111]

Space Wars was very fun

[@tristar1908]

I love computer space 1:55 1971 best year ever

[@noelht1]

0:44 This looks and feels and sounds a bit like Astro blaster. Fighter pilots needed in sector wars play Astro blaster

[@cameronpickard7456]

lunar lander was outta this world back then

[@jang6969]

Space Invaders at 7 11 all night long! 👍

[@GameTheroy]

wizzgamer, i'm afraid you're incorrect with radar scope. That game was released in 1980, not 1979. You probably don't care though, because you might have already known that.

[@reclusivehermitwithalongbu3767]

My favorite was Space Invaders & then Galaxians. I never liked Asteroids.

[@DerhamPaul-vo8fr]

It's all I had as a kid

[@AydenWildman-i8x]

My favorite game got 1st :D.

[@LukesGamePage]

Class x Breakout is one of my favourites from this time. Had Alleyway on GB as a kid and didn't lnow it wasn't the original for ages

[@isaaccuenca3429]

I have played them all. If you mastered the Lunar Lander, you could include it in your resume to join NASA.

[@nickpellatt]

Lunar Lander was very difficult for me, cant remember ever landing. I would have been about 8 years old tho

[@isaaccuenca3429]

@@nickpellatt I never got it either XDXD. I would have about 10.

[@jamessullivan4391]

It was harder than shit. More sophisticated than games of its time. I would play It now.

[@HARDcorp]

FACT: Death race is one of the first ever video games to include screaming

[@justfuntimedoingnothing8477]

Computer Space is freaking me out

[@inefekt]

Easy guess for #1, the all time classic

[@giuliannegualbertoteles6281]

Space invaders at first place ? Like, of course.

[@Amelie-g3m]

I have seen that Atari is now also active in other areas. Has anyone ever read or found out anything about it?

[@rustycagechannel]

Great video.

[@wizzgamer]

Canal Win Thanks buddy :)

[@paulinajasinska8248]

You were playing the labyrinth zone theme at the start

[@rodrigohernandez1345]

Era como vivir un momento en rayos X ......🥺

[@celinesenden4142]

44 anniversary of space invaders

[@Friendlyneighborhoodpoolguy]

Can't believe i forgot about super breakout. That was one of my favorites

[@celinesenden4142]

50 anniversary of pong

[@justworkingfortheweekend8504]

I imagine arcades during this time were a license to make money

[@grantorino2325]

1:30 Let me see whether I can trade some folded movie posters for that game!

[@currentphonograph7487]

I can get extra life & six flags on Galaxian

[@possibilitytv5652]

Time Traveler - The World’s first 3D holographic Video Game 30th anniversary celebration on December 10, 2021 At the Boulder Oaks Golf Club 10333 Meadow Glen Way E Escondido, CA Come celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime event filled with excitement & hear stories told by those who created, performed and helped develop the world’s first 3D holographic video game. 7:00 pm - 2:00 a.m. Live band performances by: 7 Seconds to Vegas and Jim Gibson Time to celebrate!

[@brianlondon5967]

Music at the start sounded more like mid eighties Nintendo.

[@tron3entertainment]

Say what you will about the graphics. But some early video games had awesome sound effects.

[@Groundwater24]

Anyone remember Gorph or Gorf from the 80’s?

[@lunes-1]

I really loved this game.could anyone please tell me,the cheapest way possible how I could get it and what game console vintage to buy.thanks

[@harrycallahan3391]

I would say the vintage Atari console would get you as close to some of the games shown here..

[@lunes-1]

@@harrycallahan3391 thanks.will look at it🤗

[@the-notorius]

Can you pliz make top 10 16bit open world games.Awesome video

[@wizzgamer]

Rep tail Studio Thanks I will make a Top 10 16-bit open world games sometime in the future.

[@the-notorius]

@@wizzgamer thanks

[@kevhead1525]

Computer Space played in Soylent Green.

[@SM853]

Completely unrelated, but what's the name of the song at the end of the video (6:07)?

[@mwmiddleton]

I figured I'd correct some history of breakout. Steve Jobs only involvement, was he had another dude named Steve Wozniak, that was the genius hardware and software engineer that actually built breakout when it was all done in circuitry and jobs lied to him stating he would split the '$800' Atari payed him for when it was really $8000. Jobs was a douche and Woz was the real genius behind Apple, and a classic little video game named Breakout.

[@andrewpizzino2514]

Loved Seawolf but where’s Battlezone?

[@unstableordinance]

You can tell the footage was taken from MAME and not from a cabinet. For example, the asteroids game looks totally different on cabinet then on MAME, with the shots glowing, and their being an outline on all objects on the screen when moving. Not a negative, its best to see that actual footage as opposed to the emulated version to see what it was really like

[@santiagobaras4893]

Name of track pls

[@luchoalzu4408]

Galaxian the best! 1

[@cjsvinyl]

That Sonic 'Labyrinth Zone' filler music was a big mistake. Should have used something less annoying and more akined to Atari to match your video.

[@MrBruh281]

1. Space Invaders

[@chrisharrison83]

☝️ HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN YEAH THE COACH FREED IT ALRIGHT THE POLTERGEIST DIDN'T HE !!!!

[@winddmmy]

where's tank commander?

[@Kikunosuke777]

Need help with the title of an F1 arcade game in the 80's, it's a top down racing game like Road Fighter but probably much older and it's back and white as far as I remember. In the arcade you play it with a steering wheel and one gas pedal. The arcades here used to lined up with these in the 80's, can't believe that I can't even find a photo of it in Google image.

[@tastetherainbow9643]

Gran Trak 10 perhaps

[@musicstudios4418]

Atari apparently brings out a crypto currency or it is already on the market. Did anyone notice anything about it?

[@Brazil_newZ]

We were paying money for those? Lol😂

[@ronch550]

Death race attracted controversy?? So even back then i guess there were already those who complained about everything.

[@wumpusthehunted2628]

You might get a better game for your quarter from the mechanical sea devil game than the video sea would game s version).hown. There were a lot of examples in Rheobeth(so?) DE around 198 (including what must have been customized extra large units). Not sure we need computer space and pong, but what do you replace them with? Boot Hill or night driver (early 3dish driving game. So early the 2600 port closely resembles the arcade version).

[@diannecubero4456]

you forgot about pac-man

[@jockmctodger]

How about that Pong hey

[@heavenandearth6896]

I didn't know that there was arcade games in the 70s thought it was only for 80s and 90s

[@MrBruh281]

Sahra Somaliland dumbass

[@smokinhalf]

gunfight